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Developing Text for Web-based Instruction: Davis
One of the major issues that faculty encounters as a design when these courses is how to incorporate the vast amounts of factual materials commonly in college-level courses. This is ample evidence to suggest that the use of tanks at least in any substantial quantity is problematic for online instruction. Faculty are told that learners seem to prefer to read textual materials in hardcopy form and will print to read in even the online instructional texts. In these cases the web-based becomes the text file dissemination device for online or web enhanced courses. In those instruction in higher education regardless to pedagogical approach requires use of text. Whether an instructor is providing course enhancement through the Web work a complete online course texts will be an integral part of the instruction.
The electronic text comes in a variety of forms some authors differentiate between hypertext, which is characterized by embedded links end nodes, and serial text which is designed to be read in a linear, sequential manner. Distinguishing between hyperbase, browsable databases that can be freely explored by the reader and hyper- documents that intentionally guide readers through an information space controlling their expiration a long lines of a predetermined structure. The term hypermedia typically refers to hypertext that incorporates other media such as audio, video, and graphics. For the purpose of this chapter the term continuous hypertext is used to refer to the kinds of texts we are most likely to encounter in web-based courses. This term is adapted from Muter 1996 to refer to hypertext that is intended to be used in a manner predetermined by the designer and that may or may not include graphics, audio, or video. In examining research and practice in the area of online tax this chapter does not focus on technical elements of web page design such as typeface, spacing, and use of color. Nor does it look at the design navigation system per se except as design relates to Pacific concept under discussion.
A great deal of information is available on the design of good web sites and it includes guidelines on the use of text. We are told to keep in short, use bullets, and highlight important information, and so on. Most of us perhaps especially those of us would teaching colleges and universities find these guides to be antithetical to academic writings downs and to the way we communicate to students about our disciplines. Nevertheless if we ignore the advice and upload our best lectures and commentary we know the students are likely to print them out and we are merely providing a different delivery mechanism for our print materials. If we assume that our students will print to read and therefore provide our textual materials in print or in a printable files he lose the opportunity to use in embedded links, illustrations, and activities some of the key instructional utilities of the Web that lead us to in the first place. All these options fail to exploit the Web's potential to encourage learners active engagement and Internet activity with the contents of our courses. Research on the use of online text for instruction although limited does offer some insight that can assist the developers of continuous hypertext for instruction.
One message that has a familiar amount of research support is that learners to nine the lengthy text online. For example in a study on use of web-based lectures found that two thirds of their students immediately printed the online lectures and most of others to read the first at the computer been printed lectures. Only two of 48 that they ran and study the documents on the computer. Other studies support this observation of learners behavior. There's also evidence to suggest that online reading is problematic for student studies comparing online with current reading have indicated that people read electronic text more slowly and that it is more tiring than reading from print. Web-based designer should interpret this research with caution keeping in mind that the Web is relatively new instructional medium, steel in the model T. stage of development. Most recently of the article suggests that modern technology has eliminated many of the problems that contributed to his lower and more tiring reading of computer screens and indicates that screen reading now can be as fast as reading from printed text.
Many of our current and potential online student regularly use the Web for recreation and commerce. They have come to expect sites that are so easy to browse pages that are so easy to scan and concise messages that enabled them to reach their goals as quickly as possible. With time and experience it is reasonable to some the students expectations and thus their defective Web learning strategies can devolve to accommodate different kinds of electronic text designed for different purposes. Just as students have learned to approach the reading of textbooks differently than the approach reading a magazine we can expect that they will learn to read their outline course materials differently than they read a.com web site experience and expectations are important determinants of behavior. The fact that students are more likely accustomed to reading academic text in it is printed form may in part explain their tendency to print and electronic course materials in order to read them. Others have observed in their studies that of online lectures the students seem to have been trying to replicate the conditions of the traditional lecture system and failed to adapt their study methods to the new system. Elaborates on this theme and described new forms of multimedia and metamedia literacies required for the 21st century. Just as students are not yet accustomed to learning from online text the faculty are not yet experienced in its development. There were so many examples of early faculty attempts to duplicate their printed materials online that the term shovel-wear evolved to describe the phenomenon. The early materials fell to take advantage of the interactivity of the wear and it is not surprising that students merely printed them out to read off-line. As faculty became more experience in the design and the use of continuous hypertext they are developing course materials that optimize use of the Web as an instructional tool materials that therefore include embedded incentives for and use online.
A fair amount of inquiry an observation supporting today's common knowledge about offering online Texas focus not on the use of the Web for injunction but rather on is used for commercial and recreational purposes. Many of the best guys were rating on the Web both online and in print are intended for the design of attractive and defective commercial web sites. Information about the design of good web sites is useful and important but its ability to be generalized to the design of goodwill courses is limited not in the least because of the difference is in purpose. Purpose or the task at hand and most mostly the complexity of the task has proven to be crucial factor in research on the efficacy of hypertext. Task complexity in their meta-analysis of experimental studies on interconnecting with hypertext. The fact that so much more is known about creating good web sites ban is known about creating good with was probably reflects the reality that there are more sites than it courses study. That this reality is changing however is evidenced by Campbell 2000 in her review of the period based architectures and frameworks for web design and in the examples of good practice she provides. Another problem of overgeneralization is the failure to distinguish between research and observation about different types of computer-based text. Some of the best articles on the use of electronic texts are based on hypertext systems designed for searching. These are collection or nodes of searchable information distinguished my frequent use of links and referred by as hyper-bases. Some of the findings from research on hyper-bases seems easily generalizable to a more linear structure of continuous hypertext of interest in this chapter. However hyper base research typically focus on the systems searchability then when used for instruction on students ability to locate answers to specific questioning using the system while continuous hypertext is used for overall comprehension. Just as caution is warranted in generalizing results of research on printed text to electronic texts so should we be cautious in applying the conclusion of research on one form of hypertext to the design and use of form created for an entirely different purpose. Limitation in our ability to learn from research point out that the inquiry, observation and experience that will form the foundation for the design and development of continuous instructional hypertext is yet in an infancy. Overgeneralization should not discourage others from trying to develop, evaluate, and improve instructional texts for web-based courses.
Purpose people seem to learn more effectively and efficiently when they approach the learning activity with specific purposes in mind. They need to understand why they are reading project with text for example and what kind of information they should be looking for as they read through it. Given the greater potential for traction via links or scrolling for example this principle is critically important for online texts. Well designed instructional text should include early on a rationale explaining the function of the tax and should convey what the instructor expects to learn from it. This is not to suggest that the students will fail to learn other things from the text but rather that they are more likely to learn what the instructor intends them to learn from it if those expectations are known. Some text authors communicate readers purpose by including specific objects at the beginning of the text however that learning objectives are more defective and more likely to be read it linguistically interesting are embedded in the natural flow of the text.
Structure one of the most persuasive themes in literature on text comprehension is the most importance of structure others point to research suggesting that structure may be even more important in electronic text because of the lack of physical cues regarding length of the document and its parts. Links to multiple text with differing structures I had to the naturally ill structured nature of some hypertext. Discussion of text designed for distance education emphasizes the importance of clear concise writing for text comprehension regardless of medium. To explain the importance of structure in electronic text points to research that shows that a reader's ability to understand and remember a text to construct a mental model of it depends upon its degree of coherence which has shown to be facilitated by a well-defined structure and rhetorical cues that reflect the structural properties. To the values of structure and reducing cognitive load -- clear consistent structure enables the reader to focus more mental comfort on reading and comprehending text. Strategies for providing structure in electronic documents include use of table of contents, overviews, headings and subheadings, graphical maps, and stable screen layout. That readers respond to global structures indicators such as headings, menu order, and underlining when they are reading complex expository texts to synthesize information. The use of continuity overviews in text designed for distance learning continuity overview shows relationship between previous readings and the new reading assignment. Research on the potential value of graphical maps for overcoming lower abilities in spatial relations, an ability that seems to have a more influence on one's efficiency in using hypertext than variables was such as cognitive styles and learning styles. It is important to note here that the use of Web browsers to display structure may be in it adequate. The use of a graphical browser to show text structure did not increase recall for comprehension of the materials nor did it increased recall of the text structure. It did however increased the actual amount of text that was read. For examples the use of page format as opposed to scrolling has been shown to enable users to develop a better sense of text. Stable screen layout, visualization of structure, and descriptive links increased document coherence and reduce cognitive load. Use of embedded closed screens information nodes that open and close within a document but does not exit the document helps prevent reader disorientation and retains the text structural coherence. Carefully selected metaphors such as file cabinets, bookshelves, or shopping malls, also have been used successfully for structuring and navigating hyper base. Metaphors may also have application for more linear instructional text particularly for organizing multiple reading in a section for across the entire course. One could easily imagine how content Reverend metaphors could be used to add structure to academic reading such as a museum display for a history or an anthropology course or a street scene for a course and social psychology. Metaphors have the added advantage of providing opportunities for students activate prior knowledge and relate it to current learning as they consider how the metaphor relates to the new information. That having students create their own structure for information is a viable learning a. However this technique is used as a synthesizing task that that's to already has read or browse the content materials so would be useful as an end of reading activity. Regardless of the strategies selected clarity and document structure is of paramount importance in the design of continuous instructional hypertext. Great care should be taken explicate and reinforce that structure in order to reduce cognitive load and facilitate learning comprehension.
Interactivity probably the single greatest advantage of electronic text over printed materials in its capacity for interactivity. With online texts students can access related information through links, visual through dynamic applets, and answer questions and receive immediate feedback. Instructors can in hand student motivation and learning through the use of application exercises, feedback, and a variety of media in their online text. In short the interactive nature of electronic text offers instructors the opportunity to increase the powerful educational effect of active learning. Moore 1989 describes three types of interaction in distance education, learning content interaction, learning-instructor interaction, and learner-learner interaction. Each is reverence of the discussion of web-based course design but the emphasis here is on learner -- content into action as affected by the design of continuous instructional hypertext. It is interesting although perhaps not surprising that experienced in distance education instructors rated asynchronous learner -- material interaction more important for learning than either synchronous teacher -- learner or synchronous learner -- learner interaction in distance education courses.
Text-embedded questions can be used to reinforce students perception of structure as well as to enable them to assess their own comprehension of content. Questions and other embedded activities can be used to break larger sections of text into smaller more manageable pieces thus potentially alleviating concerns related to extensive scrolling and reading online. Course management systems with their built in quiz functions, facilitate the use of embedded questions and feedback. Instructors can use surveys in quiz tools for pretesting to prop relevant prior learning and students enter a new topic or content area. Text embedded questions should elicit higher level as well as low-level learning. The importance of providing specific space to answer with text embedded questions. Students in that study who worked without a printed guidebook really took notes while reading even though they were directed to do so in answer to only those questions for which space was provided. Explicit directions for reading may help to overcome any natural reluctance or preconceived ideas the learner may have about reading online. Because students may expect to scan web-based materials or to print them for closer reading and because the instruction may intend for different textual materials to be used in different ways instructors should include specific directions about how students are expected to use electronic text. Specific directions for use of online materials can be combined with the meta-cognitive prompts suggesting for learning strategies, questions about perceived comprehension, or reminders of prior learning to improve reading comprehension and performance. Graphs, diagrams, and multimedia illustrations again with appropriate direction about the intended use can facilitate comprehension of ideas presented in the text. Some of the emerging capabilities and limitations of electronic graphics and animation offer a thorough and thoughtful explanation of the need to develop theoretical propositions to explain how and why graphical presentations are effective for learning. Possible explanations include aiding comprehension through visualization, reducing cognitive load, and better simulation of the real world. Multimedia materials will increase interactivity to the degree that we designed them to do so and should be accompanied by specific assignments that require students to interact with the materials. In designing continuous textile web-based courses great care should be taken to avoid the need for learners to install files and perform in the downloads unless these activities are warranted by the instructional value of the material. Graphics, animations, audio, and video should be use judiciously in web-based courses with the recognition that students may be accessing the course through a modem. End of reading problems and activities provide further opportunities to encourage learner content into action through applications, synthesis, and evaluation of the content. A major advantage of the Web is the instructors can design these activities to be completed individually or collaboratively, with the latter providing opportunities for interactions with other students as well as the content of the course. Problems and exercises are more effectively when they are graded and feedback provided. Interactivity is a primary pedagogical benefit of online text. A less interactivity is a major goal there is little reason to use continuous instructional hypertext rather than print for learning/teaching materials. The strategies can be used to effectively increased learner-content into action in web-based distance and distribute learning courses.
Summary
this chapter argues the continuous hypertext can be used effectively in online and Web enhance courses. Evidence is emerging to counter early warning systems are able to read anything but the briefest most convinced texts in an online format. Online course text can be carefully designed to incorporate what we have learned from research on electronic text although the research still is limited. The slowly emerging popularity and availability of e-textbooks and readers will provide opportunities to create and evaluate new versions of instructional hypertext. Distance education faculty should be encouraged to add to the current body of knowledge in this important area of study.
